CityQuest

Press one button and it plans a walk between good places that are open now. Then it helps the group agree, and gets everyone home.

What it is: Day-out planner with group votes and a safe way home
Who for: Anyone planning a day or night out
Runs on: Website and Android app
Status: Livecityquest.forgeclass.co.uk

A CityQuest route page: four stops from Sheffield Botanical Gardens to Weston Park Museum, drawn as a walking route on a Google map — Fig. 1A shared route: four stops, the walking time and the route on a live Google map.

01/ 08

The problem.

Planning a day or night out takes longer than it should. Someone scrolls through reviews, half the places turn out to be shut, nobody agrees, and at the end of the night someone has to work out how everyone gets home. CityQuest takes that whole job off the group.

02/ 08

What we built.

Say what you fancy, or just press Surprise me. CityQuest picks good places that are open now, or at the time you choose, and links them with a short walk. Walking time is checked against real routes, not guessed. Any stop can be swapped for another nearby in one tap. Budget and alcohol-free modes change what it suggests, and on a wet day it swaps parks for somewhere indoors.

The CityQuest planner on a laptop: an alcohol-free evening in Sheffield city centre with three open places, the walking route on the map and other nearby options shown as faded dots — Fig. 2An alcohol-free evening in Sheffield: three open places, 15 minutes' walk, any stop swappable.

Three phone screens: the CityQuest home screen with Surprise me and one-tap choices, a planned night out with stops and opening times, and the walk tab with directions between stops — Fig. 3On a phone: say what you fancy, get a plan, then walk it stop by stop.

03/ 08

Getting the group together.

Can't agree? One link in the group chat starts a vote. Friends vote without the app or an account, and the winner is planned for them. With meet in the middle, everyone adds roughly where they are and the plan starts somewhere fair. Nobody sees anyone's exact location, only their area, like S10.

Three phone screens: a group vote with options to pick from, the Get home safe screen with what gets shared, and the last bus home from the final stop with directions, Uber and Get home safe buttons — Fig. 4A group vote, Get home safe, and the last bus home from the final stop.

04/ 08

Getting home safe.

At the end of the night CityQuest shows the last bus, tram or train home from the final stop, with directions and a taxi link. Get home safe shares a live location with friends until you're in. They follow from a link, with no app needed, and if you're not home by the time you set, they're told to check on you. The location is deleted as soon as you tap I'm home.

05/ 08

Routes people share.

Plans can be saved, shared and rated. Explore lists routes by city and type across Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Bristol and Hackney Wick, ranked so routes with more reviews count for more. “I walked this” counts each person once, so nobody can inflate a route. Shared links show a proper preview in WhatsApp.

The Explore page: routes in Nottingham ranked by rating, with filters by city and by type such as alcohol-free, culture, coffee and family — Fig. 5Explore: routes by city and type, ranked by rating.

06/ 08

On the web and on Android.

The Android app is the same site plus the parts only an app can do. It keeps sharing your location with the phone locked, sends push alerts to friends, signs in with the phone's Google account and opens shared links straight in the app. One codebase, so every improvement reaches both.

Fig. 6The CityQuest app graphic, with the dice-pin logo we designed for it.

07/ 08

Built to run safely and cheaply.

Every request to the server is rate-limited and checked. Database rules mean people only see what they should: a live location is shared only with people who have its link or are in the group, and private routes stay private. Shared locations, votes and journeys delete themselves after a set time. Google Maps lookups are cached and shared between nearby trips to keep running costs down. Accounts can be deleted from inside the app, and the privacy policy covers every feature.

08/ 08

What we could build for you.

The pieces inside CityQuest (maps, opening times, live location, alerts, group links and an Android app) suit plenty of other jobs:

A trail or visitor guide for a town centre, festival, museum or heritage site, with opening times and routes that stay up to date.
A “plan your visit” tool on a venue or tourism website.
Check-ins for lone workers and late shifts, built on the same live location and alerts as Get home safe.
Route planning for staff on site visits, deliveries or field work.
Polls and meet-in-the-middle for clubs, societies and events.
An Android app made from a website you already have.

Try a few as working demos: report a problem on a map, a festival day planner and a property search with a map.

Built with

Next.js, TypeScript, Firebase (sign-in, Firestore, Cloud Functions, push notifications), Google Maps, Places and Routes APIs, Open-Meteo weather, postcodes.io, AI model APIs, Capacitor for Android.

Next case studySubjectHubFrom Python practice for one class to a platform used in more than 100 schools.

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Prefer email or a call?enquiries@forgeclass.co.uk 07825 030128Forge Class Software Ltd, Sheffield